We pass O'Neil's spineless self-defense on to you without comment — except of course for the requisite disclaimer that he does not speak on our behalf. And that we hope contrite Los Angeles Times representatives will soon arrive at our doors to apologize for O'Neil's continued, unchecked awards-season terrorism. No camera necessary.

• Tina Fey Accepts Our Apology [The Envelope]

O'Neil, for those unfamiliar, is the balloon animal-fashioning clown who runs the LAT's awards site and regularly freaks the fuck out or accuses actors who everyone loves of being total creeps.

Today, his insanity is less showy but nevertheless still amusing. In a post about a watermarked Quantum of Solace academy screener that's found itself on the web, O'Neil dances around the identity of the leaker, but makes sure to note this:

Reportedly, it was the DVD screener of a female academy member that was leaked on the Web, but it's not known if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences or legal authorities are prosecuting her or if her academy membership has been revoked.

This is why you can't have nice things, ladies. It's amusing that O'Neil would find it necessary to point out the gender of the leaker; would he have written, "Reportedly, it was the DVD of a male academy member?" Oh wait, it's Tom O'Neil, so he might, just to be bananas.

• Report: Oscar voter's screener of 'Quantum of Solace' leaked on the Web [LAT]

· Back before the Internet, Patrick Goldstein used to sit at an old-fashioned typewriter and daydream and have the whooooole Oscar beat to himself at the LA Times. Then came bloggers, whom he couldn't read on his typewriter. Word got back to him they were writing about the Academy Awards! The effrontery!

Grumpy Goldie upgraded and eventually wound up blogging himself, culminating in today's bitter screed arguing: "Anyone who doesn't believe that the Oscars haven't been thoroughly hijacked by a gang of daffy, clown-suit-clad Oscar bloggers making endlessly moronic best picture predictions just hasn't been paying attention." He specifically referred to political commentary like yesterday's insane EW item "How Obama Helps Batman," but the point was clear: Patrick misses his typewriter!

· Not one to back down from an opportunity to write 5,000 words of self-defense from a piece where he isn't even mentioned, early blog adapter David Poland fired back:

[W]e don’t all think like you, Patrick. Sorry. Honestly, I seem to recall you having a broader mind a few years back. But lunch by lunch with agents and studio execs and hack producers trying to get you to peddle their wares, you seem to have forgotten that ideas do not live and die in your cul de sac… except when they are in your word processing program… you BLOGGER!

Oooooohh, that's hateful. But the first rule of Oscar Club is that you don't talk about Oscar club — especially the part about the clown suit.

· Speaking of which, skin-crawling awards freak Tom O'Neil looked down at his floppy shoes and jump suit with animal balloons dangling from its belt loops, grabbed his big red nose and honked out his own reply:

If Goldstein wants to take aim at anything, why not those best-picture victories by Gandhi or Dances With Wolves or the fact that one was denied to what the American Film Institute repeatedly hails as the greatest film ever made, Citizen Kane?

No, Tom, you'll do, but thanks! Is it March yet?

• Election + Oscar pundits = absurd [LAT]

• How Patrick Goldstein Thinks [The Hot Blog]

• What's behind Patrick Goldstein's relentless attacks on Oscar bloggers? [Gold Derby]

We at Defamer didn't think we cared — but until you've seen O'Neil having his way with a masterpiece, you might be surprised what piques your interest (spoilers after the jump).

I've seen [Best Production winner] Wings a few times and liked it OK. But now that I've viewed [Best Artistic Picture winner] Sunrise, I must concede: Wings soars by comparison. Sunrise is paper-thin, hilariously schmaltzy. All three primary characters are cartoonish clichés and their performances 3-inch slices of honeyed ham.

Mind you, I'm the kinda guy who'd normally side with the weepie. On my top 10 list of fave pix of all time are Peggy Sue Got Married and Titanic. But I just can't shed a real tear when the farmer in Sunrise decides that he just — by golly! — can't off his sweet, dimpled wifey-pooh, after all. Nor could I cheer the scenes of the couple back together, all giddy smiles and kisses, posing for photos like newlyweds, dancing a happy peasant dance, joyous once he decided not to wring her scrawny little neck and hurl her over the side of the row boat.

What corn pone! Smothered in Cheez Whiz! Wings ain't Shakespeare or Scorsese, mind you, but it's better than that!

"Corn pone"? "Smothered in..." Oh, fuck it. Look, we've all got opinions. O'Neil can cough out whatever he wants. Nevertheless, there are some incontrovertibly great films that got movies as we know them where they are today. The haunting, technically dazzling story-in-the-shadows of a simple man's basic struggle with modernity, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise, is one of them. See Roger Ebert's extraordinary review for in-depth reasons why, BUT: Film noir? Thank Sunrise. Psychological horror? Thank Sunrise. Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick, Scorsese? Thank Sunrise. The short-sighted, star-fucking O'Neil could very well be the main character here, which may in fact signal its most objectionable quality to his Titanic-adoring eye.

So why even mention him? Because people actually read this guy — casual fans wind up browsing him and voting in his goddamned polls outlining the "best" of 80 years ago. They don't discuss; they avoid. They don't watch; they ignore. And while we can endure it with our industrial-size grain of salt every Oscar season, Sunrise and you deserve better. So write a letter, start a petition — anything to make him stop. At least until this fall, when it's not about cinema anyway.

• Was 'Sunrise' really Oscar's first best picture? [Gold Derby via MCN]